


Reach Back Through the Past

by costumejail



Series: Danger Days Year 10 [5]
Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memorials, Memories, Minor Character Death, Prompt Fill, if the tense in this makes sense no it doesnt, wow me? writing h/c? no way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:48:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27404572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/costumejail/pseuds/costumejail
Summary: Anniversaries are hard in the Zones, but there's one that Fun Ghoul always does his best to honour.
Relationships: Agent Cherri Cola & Fun Ghoul & Jet Star & Kobra Kid & Party Poison (Danger Days), Fun Ghoul (Danger Days) & Original Character(s), background and brief funkobracola
Series: Danger Days Year 10 [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995661
Comments: 13
Kudos: 15





	Reach Back Through the Past

**Author's Note:**

> Day five of the Danger Days Year Ten Celebration! Prompt was Fun Ghoul.  
> Warnings for this one are addiction (waveriding), blood, minor character death, and a lot of violence (both implied and onscreen).

_The sun glared down at Ghoul as he lay in the sand. Somewhere to his left was another body, just as sunburned and dry as his. But Ghoul paid them no attention. His gaze was fixed on the back of his eyelids and behind them, a scene kept playing over and over._

An exterminator with their gun pressed to the forehead of a killjoy. The killjoy, kneeling in the dirt surrounded by the bodies of his crew. Him looking up at the exterminator, fire in his eyes. 

Ghoul started forward, but he didn’t get more than a step towards the pair before a blast rang out. The killjoy slumped to the side and Ghoul _screamed_. The exterminator turned to look at him, a cold grin spreading over their face. They took a step toward Ghoul and he—

He doesn’t remember

He came to later, blood splattered over his face and dripping down his side. He stood alone in the middle of the battlefield, looking at the carnage that surrounded him. He recognized everyone. His brother. His crew. They’re so young, or they were. Freshly-painted rayguns and round faces and clothes purposefully too-big so there would have been room to grow into them.

One of them coughed, barely twitching on the sand and Ghoul ran toward him.

“Cherri? Witch, are you okay? Cherri? Cherri, say something, Cherri, say something please.”

Cherri Cola’s eyes slid open, they were glassy. He was pale, trying to say something but an awful gurgle overtook the words and he collapsed flat on his back again.

A quick survey revealed the problem. Cherri was dotted with shrapnel, burns lighting up most of his arm and leg. A large swathe of hair had been burned away, but that particular blast seemed to have missed his actual skin.

Still, he was going to die. Ghoul was going to watch him die.

“No, fuck, no, no, no, _Cherri._ ”

Cherri’s eyes slipped shut again and Ghoul pressed his fingers to his pulse point frantically. There was still a beat there. Weak and erratic, but there. Ghoul wrapped an arm under Cherri’s armpits and hoisted him to his feet.

He limped towards a settlement, barely visible on the horizon. He already knew that that’s where the convoy had been heading, before his brother’s crew had intercepted them.

He thinks that maybe they’ll help. 

Hopefully, they’ll help

 _Back under the sun, Ghoul itched. He idly scratched at his chest. Dead skin collected under his nails and the trails left behind burned. He hardly noticed. How different is the burn from the sun from the burn of an open wound? Limply, his arm flopped back to the sand at his side. His eyes had been closed the whole time, but he slipped into unconsciousness then_. _The sun beat down overhead. A bird flew over, crying out. Ghoul didn’t stir._

A lifetime later, Ghoul’s at the mailbox, his forehead pressed to the cool metal, even in the middle of the day it refuses to heat, the only part of the desert immune to the sun.

The back of Ghoul’s neck itches. He can recognize the impending sunburn he’ll have from staying in this position for so long, but he can’t force himself to move. Not yet.

His lips are moving soundlessly, apologies and pleas and promises slipping through them without leaving a trace.

He thinks the Witch is listening, He hopes his brother is.

He does this every year. Visits the mailbox that he never dropped his brother’s mask into and hopes, wishes, _prays_ that his soul has moved on by now. That the Witch exercised a little sympathy and didn’t make him linger to see what Ghoul did in the aftermath.

It was nothing Ghoul’s proud of, but he knows he could have done worse.

At long last, Ghoul stands. His knees creak with the movement, stiff from kneeling for hours. The sun is still high in the sky, but it doesn’t call to Ghoul as it used to. Now it just watches, almost laughing at him as he rubs the back of his neck, feeling a long-familiar burn rise up at the friction.

He’ll get Kobra to rub aloe on it tonight. He’ll rub aloe on it himself, maybe. Point being, someone will take care of him.

He knows how it’ll play out. He’ll get back to the diner and be greeted by a chorus of half-subdued greetings. The Girl might run at his knees and he’ll swing her up into a hug before she gets there, peppering kisses over her face while she giggles and squirms. She doesn’t know why Ghoul leaves, maybe doesn’t even connect the rare occasions as having any significance. The rest of the crew knows, of course, they know.

They’ll waste the evening doing something, talking or playing cards or flinging paint at whatever part of the diner wall isn’t already covered in neon blasts of whatever colours they could steal from Tommy Chow Mein’s. Ghoul will try to bow out early and go to bed, but Kobra and Cherri will exchange a glance and a pair of fake yawns and follow him down the hall. Neither of them even sleep when the sun is down, but Ghoul’s never been known to complain about the two of them curling around him. They won’t talk. There’s never been anything to say about it.

It’s the kind of sympathy that Ghoul would normally avoid, laugh it off or fake a smile or start a fight, anything to keep from the suffocating affection that is all his family can offer.

But tonight, this night, one night a year, he’ll let it happen. He’s always turned to warmth, and the kind he knows his family will offer is at least better than the sun’s.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment or come chat with me on [tumblr!](sleevesareforlosers.tumblr.com)


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